About 1.5 million years ago, two different species of early humans likely arrived within hours of each other on the shores of what is now known as Lake Turkana in Kenya. According to one source, the two sets of footprints tracing each hominid’s path represent the first geological record of such an example. report in science.
Those footprints are part of a larger picture that tells a fuller story of life there at the time.
“Footprint evidence provides a unique window into landscape occupancy over short periods of time,” he says. craig faibela professor of geology at Rutgers University and author of the study. “We can actually see two different hominid species, as well as all these birds and antelopes and everything else that was active on the edge of the lake 1.5 million years ago. ”
Mostly interspecies encounters?
Footprints hypothesized to have been made by an individual of Homo erectus. (Credit: Photo by Kevin Hatala/Chatham University)
Mr. Feibel is fairly certain that the two prints were left within a relatively short period of time. They were created at the edge of a lake, so if they had been around for a long time, they may have been eroded by water or baked by the sun. There was no sign that the print had been washed away by rain or waves.
Also, there were no cracks. That means it’s unlikely that the sun had enough time to bake them. It was probably buried gently, with the wind blowing sand and other soil upwards, leaving it well-preserved.
“This shows they were in the same place at about the same time,” Feibel said.
However, what the prints cannot prove is that these two hominids passed each other or had some kind of contact. While it’s fun to imagine two different types of early humans bumping fists, high-fiving, and exchanging fishing stories, there’s no evidence that such an encounter ever occurred.
read more: What is the difference between modern humans and ancient humans?
Two primitive humans shared a habitat
Although there is much evidence that multiple hominins occupied the Earth at the same time, footprints provide the most definitive indication that hominins shared habitat. Fossilized bones can be moved by the elements or carried away by animals, but footprints remain fixed in place.
A level of both chance and prestige drove this research. This project became famous because it was designed by Louise Leakey. She is a third generation paleontologist and the granddaughter of Louis Leakey, perhaps the most famous paleontologist of all time. Faybel is leaky foundation Active in Africa since 1981.
Luck smiles on the prepared
The good fortune came as the team was searching for bones at the scene. After unearthing the first footprint, then another, the direction of the team’s excavation changed.
“Once they realized who they were, they started clearing larger areas and found more footprints,” Feibel said.
Initially, it was not clear whether the two sets of footprints were left by different species. “Certainly, I wouldn’t have realized they were different,” says Fiebel, who visited the site after the preliminary excavation.
read more: Discovering our roots: An introduction to the history of human evolution
The research team invited study author Kevin Hatala, a professor of biology at Chatham University in Pittsburgh. Hatala has been studying hominid footprints since 2012. After examining the footprints with multiple imaging techniques, including 3D analysis, he and his team confidently conclude that both the anatomy and stride patterns indicate that two different species left the footprints. We decided that they were sufficiently different to be . .
Such footprints can add to a story beyond what other artifacts can provide. “These types of data allow us to learn how living individuals millions of years ago moved through their environments, interacted with each other, and potentially interacted with other animals. ,” Hatala said in a press release. “That’s something you can never get from bones or stone tools.”
The excavation also points out the importance of using multiple survey methods to thoroughly investigate resource-rich areas. “This area is rich in all kinds of fossils, not just these footprints and trails, but also the bones and teeth of so many things,” Feibel said. “There’s still so much to discover, so it’s a really exciting place to go and work.”
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Before joining Discover Magazine, Paul Smaglik was a science journalist for more than 20 years, specializing in U.S. life sciences policy and global scientific career issues. He started his career in newspapers but switched to scientific magazines. His research has appeared in publications such as Science News, Science, Nature, and Scientific American.
